The classification of Arabic dialects is a work in process - in particular, there is a significant lack of language-based approaches and the concept of inheritance is often neglected. Recent scholarship has attempted to address these issues. Arabic Dialectology, a compilation of essays from scholars of different origins and diverse linguistic backgrounds (Arabic, Berber, English, French, Hebrew, Spanish), aims to shed a light on recent trends in Arabic dialectology. A key contribution to the understanding of Arabic linguistics, Arabic Dialectology is a must-have.
In light of the rapid rise of new trends and applications in various natural language processing tasks, this book presents high-quality research in the field. Each chapter addresses a common challenge in a theoretical or applied aspect of intelligent natural language processing related to Arabic language. Many challenges encountered during the development of the solutions can be resolved by incorporating language technology and artificial intelligence. The topics covered include machine translation; speech recognition; morphological, syntactic, and semantic processing; information retrieval; text classification; text summarization; sentiment analysis; ontology construction; Arabizi translation; Arabic dialects; Arabic lemmatization; and building and evaluating linguistic resources. This book is a valuable reference for scientists, researchers, and students from academia and industry interested in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, especially for Arabic linguistics and related areas.
This book, by a group of leading international scholars, outlines the history of the spoken dialects of Arabic from the Arab Conquests of the seventh century up to the present day. It specifically investigates the evolution of Arabic as a spoken language, in contrast to the many existing studies that focus on written Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. The volume begins with a discursive introduction that deals with important issues in the general scholarly context, including the indigenous myth and probable reality of the history of Arabic; Arabic dialect geography and typology; types of internally and externally motivated linguistic change; social indexicalisation; and pidginization and creolization in Arabic-speaking communities. Most chapters then focus on developments in a specific region - Mauritania, the Maghreb, Egypt, the Levant, the Northern Fertile Crescent, the Gulf, and South Arabia - with one exploring Judaeo-Arabic, a group of varieties historically spread over a wider area. The remaining two chapters in the volume examine individual linguistic features of particular historical interest and controversy, specifically the origin and evolution of the b- verbal prefix, and the adnominal linker -an/-in. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of the linguistic and social history of Arabic as well as to comparative linguists interested in topics such as linguistic typology and language change.
This volume brings together eleven peer-reviewed articles on Arabic linguistics. The contributions fall under three areas of linguistics: Phonology and phonetics; syntax and semantics; and language acquisition, language contact, and diglossia. They reflect some various perspectives and emphases. Including data from North African, Levantine, and Gulf varieties, Standard Arabic, as well as Arabic varieties spoken in diaspora, these articles address issues that range from sibilant merging, raising, lexicalization, agreement, to diglossia, dialect contact, and language acquisition in heritage speakers. The book is valuable reading for linguists in general and for those working on descriptive and theoretical aspects of Arabic linguistics in particular.
The present volume provides an overview of current trends in the study of language contact involving Arabic. By drawing on the social factors that have converged to create different contact situations, it explores both contact-induced change in Arabic and language change through contact with Arabic. The volume brings together leading scholars who address a variety of topics related to contact-induced change, the emergence of contact languages, codeswitching, as well as language ideologies in contact situations. It offers insights from different theoretical approaches in connection with research fields such as descriptive and historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and language acquisition. It provides the general linguistic public with an updated, cutting edge overview and appreciation of themes and problems in Arabic linguistics and sociolinguists alike. As of January 2023, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.
Until about 60 years ago, linguistic research on the Arabic language in the West was restricted to inquiries on Classical Arabic and the Classical tradition, and spoken Arabic dialects, with historical studies embedded within the broader field of Semitic languages. This situation is changing quickly, not only through the continuation of older research traditions, but also with the integration of new research fields and perspectives. With this expansion comes the danger of specialists in Arabic losing an overview of the field, and of leaving non-specialists without basic resources for evaluating domains of research which they may be interested in for comparative purposes. The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics will confront this problem by combining state-of-the-art overviews with essays on issues of perspective, controversy, and point of view. In twenty-four chapters, leading experts from around the world will lay out their own stances on controversial issues. The book not only evaluates ways in which questions and theories established in general linguistics and its sub-fields elucidate Arabic, but also challenges approaches which might result in accommodating Arabic to "non-Arabic" interpretations, and brings out the Arabic specificity of individual problems. The Handbook, in one compact volume, gives critical expression to a language which covers large populations and geographical areas, has a long written tradition, and has been the locus of major intellectual fervor and debate.
For decades, students learning the Arabic language have begun with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and then transitioned to learning spoken Arabic. While the MSA-first approach neither reflects the sociolinguistic reality of the language nor gives students the communicative skills required to fully function in Arabic, the field continues to debate the widespread adoption of this approach. Little research or evidence has been presented about the effectiveness of integrating dialect in the curriculum. With the recent publication of textbooks that integrate dialect in the Arabic curriculum, however, a more systematic analysis of such integration is clearly becoming necessary. In this seminal volume, Mahmoud Al-Batal gathers key scholars who have implemented integration to present data and research on the method’s success. The studies address curricular models, students' outcomes, and attitudes of students and teachers using integration in their curricula. This volume is an essential resource for all teachers of Arabic language and those working in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL).
This volume provides a general perspective on aspects of Arabic in relation to various areas of linguistics. To the general linguist, it is a source of information and data on Arabic analyzed within current models of analysis; to the Arabic linguist, it provides current analyses of both familiar and new data. The book is divided into three sections, which contain exciting papers on Arabic syntax (mostly within Government-Binding theory), textual analysis, and psycholinguistics. The volume opens with an overview of the current state of Arabic linguistics by the Editor and a major presentation by Charles Ferguson.
The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics introduces readers to the major facets of research on Arabic and of the linguistic situation in the Arabic-speaking world. The edited collection includes chapters from prominent experts on various fields of Arabic linguistics. The contributors provide overviews of the state of the art in their field and specifically focus on ideas and issues. Not simply an overview of the field, this handbook explores subjects in great depth and from multiple perspectives. In addition to the traditional areas of Arabic linguistics, the handbook covers computational approaches to Arabic, Arabic in the diaspora, neurolinguistic approaches to Arabic, and Arabic as a global language. The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics is a much-needed resource for researchers on Arabic and comparative linguistics, syntax, morphology, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics, and also for undergraduate and graduate students studying Arabic or linguistics.
Modern Written Arabic is a complete reference guide to the grammar of modern written Arabic. The Grammar presents an accessible and systematic description of the language, focusing on real patterns of use in contemporary written Arabic, from street signs to literature. Examples are drawn from authentic texts, both literary and journalistic, published since 1990. This comprehensive work is an invaluable resource for intermediate and advanced students of Arabic and anyone interested in Arabic linguistics and the way modern written Arabic works. Features include: comprehensive coverage of all parts of speech full cross-referencing authentic examples, given in Arabic script, transliteration and translation a detailed index.
